Oct. 8, 2007 - Huckabee- A small-government conservative?

Writes Dean of ForestFire-

There has been some growing admiration for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee since the second GOP presidential debate. I received about four e-mails from friends wanting my take on Huckabee. I will let Huckabee’s record speak for itself:

1. Governor Huckabee signed sales tax hike in 1996; 

2. Governor Huckabee supported internet sales tax in 2001;

3. Governor Huckabee opposed repeal of a sales tax on groceries and medicine in 2002;

4. Governor Huckabee signed tax increases on gasoline (1999) and cigarettes (2003);

5. Governor Huckabee signed into law a $5.25 per day bed tax on private nursing home patients in 2001;

6. Governor Huckabee proposed sales tax increase in 2002;

7. Governor Huckabee opposed congressional measure to ban internet taxes in 2003;

8. Governor Huckabee allowed 17% sales tax increase to become law in 2004; 

9. Governor Huckabee, by the end of his tenure, was responsible for a 37% higher sales tax in Arkansas, 16% higher motor fuel taxes, and 103% higher cigarette taxes;

10. Governor Huckabee refused to take the pledge to not raise taxes if elected President in 2007;

11. Governor Huckabee is responsible for spending increases of 65.3% from 1996 to 2004;

12. Governor Huckabee is responsible for a 20% increase in the number of state government workers;

13. Governor Huckabee increased and expanded ARKids First which is a massive government program that provides ‘free’ (i.e. socialized) health coverage for thousands; 

14. Governor Huckabee supported the 2003 Republican-initiated (sadly) Medicare prescription drug plan which is a massive and unfunded liability shouldered by us taxpayers. It is the largest new government entitlement program since LBJ;

15. Governor Huckabee raised the minimum wage in April 2006 from $5.15 to $6.25 an hour and encouraged Congress to take the same thereby hurting business and the free market;

16. Governor Huckabee supports ‘price-gouging’ legislation which is just a veiled threat against free enterprise and the free market;

17. Governor Huckabee called No Child Left Behind “the greatest education reform effort by the federal government in my lifetime,” even though it was bloated and stripped schools of local control and increased federal spending on education by 48% without any real reform;

18. Governor Huckabee signed into law Arkansas’s first statewide smoking ban against private property establishments. This was a gross violation of private property rights and a huge act of big/nanny government;

19. Governor Huckabee has banned soda from Arkansas public schools and is promoting the big/nanny government agenda of regulating what we eat and drink;

Bottom Line: Governor Mike Huckabee is no conservative and he is no heir to the Goldwater/Reagan legacy of LIMITED GOVERNMENT and INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FREEDOM. Mike Huckabee is a big government tax-and- spender who can’t be trusted to uphold the Reagan legacy if elected President.

Resource: ClubForGrowth.org , The Cato Institute